Many companies continue to be stumped when trying to list their Web sites prominently on search engines and resolve search engine optimization (SEO) problems. Nine By Blue, a company created by ex-Googler Vanessa Fox, has launched Blueprint Search Analytics, software designed to help users identify and fix these types of issues in a simplified manner.

During her two-year stint at Google, Fox developed a set of tools and educational materials known as Google Web Central, which advises Web masters on how to get their sites listed on Google and troubleshoot problems with the way Google indexes their pages. Based on her experience as a developer and spokesperson for the behemoth search company, Fox says she saw a need for a solution that can help companies quickly find and fix SEO-related problems.

"Whenever I talked about how companies can analyze their data, I'd have to walk people through at least fifteen steps," Fox says. "I started wondering, 'Why can't I just build software that does that for you behind the scenes and then, based on all these pieces of data, tells you what's really going on.' That was where the idea for Blueprint came from."

Blueprint features three components: Query analytics that make sense of the keywords that bring traffic to a site and can zero in on the reasons behind traffic drops; search engine analytics that show users how search engines see their site by analyzing server logs and alerting them to issues; and technical diagnostics that score their site against a technical checklist and provide prioritized recommendations from developers.

Blueprint works with Google and Yahoo Search (now powered by Microsoft's Bing search engine). After clients purchase the software, Nine By Blue will help them link their data sources to Blueprint and customize it for each company's needs. Nine By Blue's clients include Microsoft, Expedia, BankRate, AllRecipes, and IGN.